Charter priorities

At least from a typical Staten Islander’s perspective, Charter Revision Commission Chairman Matthew Goldstein was saying all the right things when he met with the Advance Editorial Board last week.

He noted that the issue of increasing local control of certain city functions — a topic much in the air around here of late — had been raised and discussed at the panel’s various public meetings in most of the other boroughs as well. Dr. Goldstein conceded, “That issue is so embedded in everything that we’re going to be looking at that I think that it’s really the fundamental issue here.”

He added, “It is the central variable that explains most of everything that we’re going to be looking at. So, yes, we’re going to have to look at it very seriously.”

Those are encouraging words to all those New Yorkers who had assumed that only issues near and dear to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who after all, convened the commission and appointed its members, would top the panel’s agenda.

The mayor’s priorities seem to be revamping the city’s term limits law (in accordance with a pledge he made during his controversial quest for a third term last fall) and perhaps eliminating the Office of the Public Advocate, whose occupants have been thorns in every mayor’s side.

It was also expected that good-government causes, such as non-partisan elections for city offices, ethics reforms and increased transparency, would also be on the commission’s agenda.

But Dr. Goldstein insisted that the mayor wanted the panel to look at every aspect of city government to see how it can be improved. Now it appears from his report that altering the balance between centralized control and local authority in the execution of certain city services has emerged from the public hearings as one of the primary issues for the commission to consider.

We hope the Charter Revision Commission is able to preserve that independence, and its admirable determination to focus on the themes of most concern to the ordinary New Yorkers who have made their views known at the public forums.

The commission plans to do more research on its own, then meet next week to hear the advice of previous charter revision commission heads. After that, they will bring in experts in the various issues under consideration to provide a deeper understanding of them. Then, there will be a new round of public forums after which the panel will issue a preliminary set of recommendations with specific questions to be considered for the ballot this November.

The commission must submit its final set of questions to the city clerk by Sept. 2 to get them on this year’s ballot.

From everything Dr. Goldstein has related, the question of ceding more control to the individual boroughs seems to have a much better chance of making it to the ballot than was originally thought, although it’s thought that Mayor Bloomberg is not a fan the idea.

What’s more, the top-to-bottom review of city government the panel has undertaken is a tall order — especially since the members of the commission have so little time in which to do it and then come up with proposed charter changes they can present to the voters in November.

And while the public hearings have pointed the panelists toward certain themes, the panel is free to pick and choose arbitrarily which issues make the final cut heading into the summer. There has been no commitment on its part to take up the issues raised most often by the public, including local control. Indeed, Dr. Goldstein expressed interest in several reforms that don’t seem to be on the radar of most New Yorkers.

Then, too, it’s a given that there won’t be a raft of 10 or 15 questions that get on the ballot either. More likely one or two or perhaps three, and one of them is almost certain to be term limits. Will local control be on the short list?

The chairman said that he expects the commission to continue beyond Election Day to consider other charter reforms to frame for the 2011 ballot. But the law is that the panel automatically dissolves if it puts even one question on the 2010 ballot. Would Mayor Bloomberg “reboot” the commission for another round of charter revision, as Dr. Goldstein suggests? We have our doubts.

We have said from the beginning that November is too soon to formulate a plan for more local control in the boroughs. If there is a question on the ballot this year, the Charter Commission members must make it clear to the mayor that the panel has more work to do. And the mayor must re-empower the Charter Commission. To not allow the commission to continue its work would be a betrayal to New York and its citizens.